by Mia Kayla
“In the playground.”
“But we went there,” Sarah cried out. “I would have seen it there for sure.”
The officer offered Sarah a small, apologetic smile and motioned toward me. “We are searching the vicinity, outside of the school perimeter too.”
I visibly shook. “Thank you.” I wanted to throw up from the shock of everything happening around me. The guilt I felt was overwhelming, and it left me immobile. Ice spread through my stomach, and I shriveled into myself.
Sarah hugged the backpack, the top pressing against her chin. “Mary, please be okay. I promise to never fight with you again. I promise to let you play with my American Girl doll whenever you want. I promise you can sleep in my bed when you’re scared.”
My eyes became wet with tears. I pulled the bag out of her hands and brought her to my chest, kissing the top of her head. She shuddered against me as Kenzo watched us, only a few steps away.
“Mary will be just fine. She’s probably out somewhere, playing with a lost dog.” I uttered those words even though I wasn’t sure if they were true. I needed them to be true. I needed my Mary to be okay. I needed Paul far, far, far away from the family I’d grown to care for.
I reached for Mary’s backpack and dumped all the items onto the concrete, searching her belongings—her pencil case, her folder of assignments, her notebook, her lunch bag stuffed inside. I picked up every piece on the ground, as though something would give me a clue as to where she’d gone but I came up with nothing.
When my phone rang, my heart leaped in my chest. I checked the screen and answered immediately. “Charles?”
His voice was frantic and out of breath. “I’m running toward the school right now. I’m a good eight blocks away.”
“Running?” I said, my mind muddled and not computing. “What happened?”
“Brad got into an accident, a fender bender. Either way … Becky, I have to tell you something. The PI came back with some information.”
My hands stilled on the notebook that I had been about to stuff back into the bag.
“Paul is dead.”
Dead.
The word just sat there in my mind.
Dead.
Then, it started chugging like a train, loud and clear and deafening …
Dead, dead, dead …
Fear knotted my insides.
“What do you mean?” I swallowed the bile that had crept up my throat.
Charles’s breath was coming out in chugs as he relayed grimly, “He died two years ago from an apparent suicide.”
I wasn’t sad, of course. But I wasn’t relieved either. I was numb. In shock. And confused. So confused.
But …
“I don’t understand …” My voice trailed off as other negative thoughts filtered through my head.
If Paul hadn’t taken Mary, then who had? At least with Paul, we could put a face to a name; we could track him down.
“Just stay there,” Charles ordered. “Don’t move. I’ll be there soon.” And then he hung up.
I frantically searching the front pockets of Mary’s backpack when my fingers found a yellow Post-it Note. My whole body prickled when I read the words.
My eyes focused on Kenzo talking to a police officer who had approached, and then my attention fixed on the paper within my fingertips.
I have exactly what you are looking for.
The number on the Post-it pulsed on the paper, causing my adrenaline to spike. I jumped to a standing position, thinking of my next actions.
If I handed this newfound information to the authorities, they’d take me out of the picture. But I had this inner need to find her myself. To get to Mary.
I waved at Kenzo, getting his attention. “I’m going to the washroom, but I’ll be right back. Can you keep an eye on Sarah?”
After he nodded, I kissed the top of her forehead. “Stay right here. I’ll be back.” With your sister. I promise.
When I was a good distance away, I dialed the number on the Post-it Note.
“Hello?” I said, my voice small and desperate.
“Hello, Becky.” Her tone was low and gravelly, a direct consequence of excessive smoking. I could almost smell the stench of cigarettes wafting from her mouth. “Long time no talk, honey.”
The voice that greeted me was familiar. And female.
It had been a long time but apparently not long enough.
I was more confused now than when Charles had told me Paul was dead.
My voice croaked out, “Mom?”
Charles
I was running as though my life depended on it—because it did. My children were my life. Sweat coated my neck and my back through my suit, but I didn’t let it deter me as my arms pumped harder and faster.
The sound of a car horn honking behind me had me turning. I only stopped when I realized it was Brad.
“Get in.”
I hopped in the car and chucked my suit jacket to the back. “What happened?” I asked, trying to take a full breath into my lungs.
“I told the lady we couldn’t find my niece, told her we’d pay for all damages and insurance wouldn’t have to get involved. I gave her my number.” His face was stoic and still.
On any other day, Brad giving a woman his number would be a family joke. Not today. No jokes today.
No, we are going to fucking find my daughter, and then we’re all going to laugh about it later, I told myself to try to keep calm. I reminded myself that today was going to have a good outcome.
We are going to find her. Everything is going to be okay. I repeated the words in my head over and over again.
“Nothing had better have happened to her,” he ground out.
“Don’t go there, Brad,” I warned him. I didn’t need his panic spouting out scenarios. “If Paul’s dead, there’s hope to believe there is a reasonable explanation for all of this,” I said.
But he kept going, “Life is a shitty, shitty game. We’ve been dealt bad hand after bad hand. I’m done with this shit, man. If someone hurt my baby, I’m going to jail. Guaranteed.”
I pushed his words out and cleared my head. I needed all my faculties to make sure this thing came to an end and that Mary was found safe and sound. We double-parked in the emergency lane, jumped out of the car, and ran into the school. In the main office, my eyes connected with Sarah’s, and my whole body relaxed. Immediately, I dropped to the ground and pulled her into my arms, breathing her in, holding her close.
Tears fell down her face as her small arms wrapped around my waist.
“Did you find her?” I asked, pulling back to swipe the tears that had fallen down her cheeks.
She shook her head. “No, Daddy.” She sobbed uncontrollably.
I gulped. “Where’s Becky?”
“She told me to stay here with Kenzo.”
A prickle of goose bumps trailed up my arm. What? Where the hell did she go?
When I released Sarah, Brad lifted her in his arms, her legs dangling above the ground. He kissed her cheek over and over again. “I’m homeschooling you from now on,” he growled, his normal vibrancy gone.
I stood at full height, turning my attention to Kenzo. “You let her leave?”
“She said she was going to the washroom and didn’t come back.”
Two more officers approached me, followed by the principal right behind them.
I didn’t want to talk to any of them right now. I wanted to take things into my own hands. I needed to find Becky and Mary.
A tall male officer with light-brownish hair came closer. “Mr. Brisken, hello. We have a few questions, and we will brief you on our search efforts.”
“One second.” I turned the other way, not wanting to be rude but needing to speak to Becky. Something wasn’t right.
Why would she just leave? And without Sarah?
I plucked my phone from my back pocket and called her. It kept ringing and ringing. The longer it rang, the more my lungs constricted. For the first time in a long time,
I couldn’t get the next breath in my lungs.
When I called a second time, she finally picked up.
“Where are you?” I asked, beyond panicked.
“I’m going to get Mary.” She sounded out of breath as her sobs escalated, harder, faster.
I strained my ears to hear her.
“Who has her?” Because at this point, with the way Becky sounded out of her mind, I knew it was a who and that she wasn’t just simply looking somewhere.
“My mother has her, Charles. My mom has Mary.”
The hairs on the back of my neck rose.
Her mom? I was so shocked that I couldn’t even say the words aloud.
I shook my head, flipped around, and locked eyes with Brad and Sarah. They were staring back at me expectantly.
I didn’t get a chance to ask my next question.
There was determination and anger and fear in Becky’s voice. “I promise I’ll get her back, Charles. If that’s the last thing I do.”
And then the line went dead.
Chapter 40
Becky
All my mother wanted was money. All she ever needed was money. It was her motivation. What drove her. It wasn’t love. There was no love in her heart.
If I’d been old enough to work, only then, maybe … just maybe, she would have kept me. Growing up, I’d only been a burden to her, a drain to her penniless situation, so she gave me up. It didn’t help that she’d been in and out of jail for petty crimes. She’d never fought to keep me, looked to find me—until now, and I knew why.
While I knew my mom to be a cunning, conniving person, she wasn’t violent. Not to me anyway. She could’ve changed in all her years, I wouldn’t know, but I thought—at least, I hoped and prayed with all my heart—that even though she had Mary, she wouldn’t hurt her. And I definitely knew she wouldn’t keep her. But what I didn’t know was whether she had a partner or if she was working alone. And if she had a partner, then all bets were off. I had no idea what I was going headlong into.
I swiped at my cheeks, driving faster toward a destination she had texted me. Guilt plagued my insides. If I hadn’t come here to nanny for the Briskens, Mary would be at home, safe in Charles’s arms.
The realization that I’d put them—an innocent family—in this situation had me shaking uncontrollably.
Please. Please. Please let Mary be okay.
I rubbed at my brow, biting my lip as I pulled into the parking lot. Nothing would calm my nerves. I couldn’t count anything out, not when it came to Mary’s safety. Desperation made people do stupid things. I should know. I’d lived half my existence watching my mother wreck her life into pieces.
There was only one car in the parking lot of the high school, and before I knew it, I was gunning toward the vehicle, not sure of what awaited me.
Automatically, I took the make and model of the car, and when I slowed to approach, I memorized the license plate. Then, she stepped out of the car, and I swallowed hard as my breaths came out in shallow puffs. It was her, my mother. She looked different now. Her hair was dyed a dark brown, her white roots showing like she’d been too lazy to redo it—or more likely, she couldn’t afford it. Her green eyes—the one thing I’d inherited from her that I didn’t hate—met my gaze with a coolness that chilled me to the bone.
My eyes flickered from her to the car, searching for my girl and any sign that she was in there. I was about to jump my mother if she didn’t tell me when, suddenly, sweet Mary waved at me from inside the car, her face pushing up against the window in the backseat, her smile bright and shining like the sun, as though it were a perfect day.
I couldn’t even describe what it felt like, seeing her in that moment. Like my world had shattered and come back together in one swift second.
“Mary …” My word whooshed out in one big rush.
I waved at her and approached slowly, assessing the situation to see if my mother had a gun on her. She’d carried firearms before, and I knew better than to think that she wouldn’t have one on her now.
As though she could read my mind, my mother tipped her chin down and nodded. I followed her gaze to see a bulge in the front pocket of her worn jeans. My whole world bottomed out because, now, she had leverage.
Then, she nodded toward the car. “Get in, Becky.” Her voice was cheery, which didn’t match this disconnected look in her eye.
I debated on what I should do, but Mary was in the car.
“What do you want?” I snapped, slowly heading for the car.
I’d never felt so helpless. Living in foster care didn’t hold a candle to how helpless I felt in this moment. There was nothing I could do. There was only one choice I could make. If I wanted to keep Mary safe, I had to go with her.
“I’ll tell you once you get in the car,” she snapped, fake cheer all gone.
I shivered as I opened the backseat door of the car, and once inside, I pulled Mary into my lap. I crushed her into me, and she giggled as if she didn’t have a clue that everyone who loved her was searching the city. Her laughter was rich, a glorious sound, the best sound, like the symphony playing at the opera house, like the church bell ringing right before mass.
My lips pressed to the softness of her hair, and I shuddered against her, relief washing over me. Not full, total relief, but a fraction of it. I was with her, my Mary, my girl.
Because she is mine, and I’m never letting her out of my sight again.
“You missed me. I can tell.” She laughed, completely oblivious.
Tears outlined my eyes as I held her close. I didn’t want to show fear, to show relief that she was safe, to show her the desperation I felt, the need to get her away from here. I tried to hide that anything was wrong. I wanted to shield her from it all.
But she knew because Mary pulled back, and her eyebrows scrunched together. “What’s wrong?”
I cupped her cheek. “Nothing, baby girl.”
The sweet smile was back on her face. “Your mama got me ice cream.”
I nodded, securing her in, buckling her seat belt. “That’s great, baby girl.”
Mary told me about her day, rambling on as though nothing was wrong. She told me she had left the little pumpkin that she got from the pumpkin patch on her desk at the school.
It was as if this were a regular day, as though we were on our way home and she was recounting the day’s events, but this could not have been more different.
Kate, my mother, drove, to who knows where.
While we drove, I scrambled to come up with a plan to get Mary as far away as possible from this situation. When I took out my phone, Kate stepped on her brakes so fast that Mary and I jerked forward.
“No phones,” she barked out.
Mary’s eyes widened, and I patted her knee. “I’m not calling anyone. I’m going to play a show for Mary, so she doesn’t have to listen to any adult conversations.”
My mother eyed me for a second, and I took out my AirPods from my bag. “Mary, do you want to watch Peppa Pig or Sofia the First?”
“Sofia!” she exclaimed, throwing her little arms in the air.
I pushed the earbuds in her ears and played a YouTube video of one of her favorite shows.
When Kate faced the road and continued to drive and I knew that Mary was occupied, I finally spoke, “How much do you need this time?”
Her laugh was cynical. “How do you know that I just didn’t want to see you?”
My laugh was more cynical than hers. “See me? When have you ever in my whole life wanted to see me just because?” My jaw locked. Anger clouded my vision, and I spat out my next words, “Just tell me why you’re doing this.”
The car turned silent, so silent that I could hear Mary’s show playing on my phone.
“There are some people I owe money to, Becky. And they’re not nice people.” Her voice had that manipulative quality to it, like she knew she could make me feel for her.
But I couldn’t feel anything but contempt for her. I’d lost all compassi
on for my mother long ago. And I didn’t care what she did to me, but I wasn’t going to let the people I cared about be collateral damage.
I wasn’t going to let this woman use an innocent child as leverage to get what she wanted. This woman had to go to jail, and I swore she would if it was the last thing I did on this earth. I needed her locked up, so she couldn’t hurt the people around me any longer. Once I had Mary safe, I’d lead the cops to her, find authorities to take her. She couldn’t get far. I had her license plate memorized by now.
“How much?” I repeated, working hard to keep the anger out of my voice.
She was silent for a beat. “Ten. Ten thousand to get me back on my feet.”
I released a long, jagged sigh.
“It’s only money, Becky.” She rolled her eyes. “And looking at the Briskens, it looks like this would be nothing for them.”
A sudden reality hit me that this had been my life with this woman. Each and every time she had needed money, she’d come to me. And she clearly knew the Briskens had the means. Not like I was surprised. But still, my fear only heightened at this new reality—that she’d gone to a great extent to research them. That only meant that her desperation ran deep.
Now that she had connected the two, she would always use me as leverage against them. If there was a bounty on my head, Charles would pay whatever it was to keep me safe. I knew that much.
I swallowed down the bile that had crept up my throat. “Let Mary go, and I’ll get you what you need.” And get you in jail.
She laughed again as she pulled off the highway. “Do you think I’m stupid, Becky? You know your mother better than that.”
I gritted my teeth. How dare she! My blood was beginning to boil. “There are cops swarming the school. Mary’s father has a whole security team scouring the vicinity. There’s no way this will end well, Kate, so just let her go.”
She shook her head, slow and patient. “That’s not going to happen, and you know that.”
I did know that. I knew how she was, how greed drove her, but still … I had to try. There was no way I was going to allow her to get away with this. If anything, she’d come back again. I knew that much. She’d use the Briskens as her personal ATM, and I wouldn’t allow that.